Copyright (c) 2007 Lynn Woodland
After the frenetic activity of the winter holidays that culminates in a new year, we’re faced with a cold, dark expanse of winter. Many animals hibernate or migrate, but we humans, for the most part, just slog on through, bundling up, digging our cars out of snowbanks, and doing what we can to ward off colds and depression.
There is, of course, a certain necessity to this if we’re to live in the modern-day world, but we can still find ways to diminish the stress produced by continually overlaying our agenda on the unavoidable flow of the seasons. While we still may have to shovel snow and be out after dark, we can embrace the hibernating season of winter in our spiritual life and find a surprisingly rich source of inner warmth and renewal.
While fall poses the challenge of letting go and releasing what we no longer need, winter asks us to live in the emptiness and not fill it right away. The winter season is particularly suited for embracing an experience of the “void.” The “void” is a state of not doing, not having, and not knowing. It’s a place of emptiness and of stillness—the point after we’ve sustained losses and before anything new has come along to take their place. We may experience the void as a peaceful state of acceptance and surrender, or with the restlessness that precedes change when we’re dissatisfied with what is but don’t know where to go next. Most of us are terrified of the void and will do anything to avoid or fill it.
This fear of the void stems from our collective belief in scarcity. When we believe there isn’t enough for us, we become afraid to let go because we don’t trust there will be anything more if we give up what we have. Emptiness is our worst fear. We hold on too long to jobs, relationships, and material things, resisting the ebb and flow of change, even when what is has become unfulfilling, even stultifying. We cling to what we have, not because we love it, but just so we won’t have to face emptiness.
Yet it’s in the stillness, the silence, the open space that’s left when all the clutter is removed, that we’re best able to hear our inner guidance and see the bigger pictures that will lead us to a new, improved quality of being, doing, and having—one that will better suit who we’ve become. It’s through emptiness that we make room for our highest good. If we have our arms filled with garbage we may have “a lot,” but we don’t have what we need. And we’re not able to embrace something better because our arms are full.
The void is an integral part of the cycle of life and can’t be avoided. Just as winter has to come after the harvest and sleep has to come after activity, the void is essential to life. We tend to associate the void with pain, but it doesn’t have to be painful. As we learned in the fall season, it’s only our resistance and our attempts to protect ourselves from the void that make it painful.
Paradoxically, allowing rather than resisting the natural barren cycles of life tends to shorten their duration and fuels the next stage of active growth. When we stop struggling against emptiness, the void becomes a fertile place of limitless possibilities. Instead of scrambling for something to fill the void, we do better to use these times for dreaming, listening, healing, and building energy. They are an opportunity to get clear about what we really want before proceeding forward. Speeding through the void is a bit like a caterpillar emerging too soon from the chrysalis, coming out a slimy, lumpy thing instead of a beautiful butterfly. There’s no efficiency in this. When we try to skip over the void, we tend to find ourselves suddenly back in it again. There’s a process to the void that can’t be hurried except by surrendering to it wholeheartedly.
Making our time in the void productive requires allowing feelings to surface rather than numbing them through addictions or activity. The void often takes us into grief because we’re experiencing the ending of an old way of being. Even welcomed endings bring with them some degree of mourning as we let go of something familiar.
The void is a good place to do some dreaming—as opposed to planning. Dreaming is an open state of imagining possibilities before we have a clue as to how they might manifest. It is about exploring in our imagination what we might want rather than what we think we can have. Planning, on the other hand, involves working out the means to the end. While planning is a good thing at the right time, too much planning when we’re in a void phase of life can actually limit rather than expand our possibilities. Imagine the caterpillar in the chrysalis, desperately planning a way out. The truth of his condition is that he needs do nothing but dream beautiful butterfly dreams and let nature take its course. Planning doesn’t serve us when it’s rooted in a fearful distrust of the process of life.
The void calls for a leap of faith in an invisible process. It’s a time to listen to inner guidance and trust what feels right even if it doesn’t jive with what seems sensible. All of this requires letting the empty spaces in our lives stay empty for a bit—allowing time for inactivity, silence, and introspection. In this way, we gently grow out of the void and emerge organically into a wonderful new way of life instead of struggling out, feeling beaten and battered, with nothing positive to show for our efforts, like the caterpillar who succeeds in breaking out of his chrysalis too soon.
To make use of this void time of winter, first, make time. Make a little more time for sleep, a little more time to stay home with nothing planned. If your life is structured in a way that allows no empty space, consider changing this, even in some small ways. Having every moment planned, every space filled, leaves no opportunity for refueling and eventually takes a toll on our health and well-being. Make quiet time to reflect on the past and dream about the future. Let yourself feel sadness and shed tears. This isn’t permission to become inert and sink into depression or self-pity. Use times of stillness for journaling, meditation, creative activities, and all forms of inner work. Give attention to remembering your dreams at night and consider writing them down.
It’s a good time to engage in a more active dialogue with your inner guidance, which is often very loud and noticeable during these times. The following is an exercise in automatic writing to help get you started. I’ve also include here steps for incubating a dream that we work with in another lesson. I recommend doing both the conscious dialoguing and the dreamtime work because each will intensify the other.
Exercise: Dialoguing with Inner Guidance
Sit quietly with pen and paper, or at your computer if you’re comfortable and facile with a keyboard. Take a moment to relax, turn your attention inward, and form an intention that a higher source of wisdom will now speak to you. Begin with a specific question or just a request to hear whatever you most need to know. You might want to bring to mind the power you claimed several weeks ago as a focus for your guidance, and incorporate your talisman in this in whatever way feels appropriate.
Next, imagine that a higher, wiser voice is speaking to you in response to your desire for guidance. Immediately, as you hear these imagined words, write them down. Don’t wait until the message is complete because that may interrupt the flow or you may forget parts.
It may feel at first that you’re making up the words yourself and they’re not coming from a higher source. However, as you continue with this exercise you’ll probably notice that you’re seeing perspectives on your situation that you’ve never considered before. You may even begin to have a sense that the voice speaking to you is much different than your own. The voice may go on to new topics and have quite a lot to say. Whether you believe this voice to be your own intuition or an external spiritual being is not so important as whether the information feels helpful and useful. After a session of writing, read over what you’ve written and see if it feels right, shows you new possibilities, and helps you to feel more at peace. Keep what rings true and feels helpful. Disregard anything else.
Steps for Incubating a Dream
- Write a note to your Higher Self requesting a dream. Place this note under your pillow before going to sleep.
- Incorporate any elements of ritual that will give your written request added impact: a lit candle, music, a moment of quiet reflection, etc.
- Place pen and paper or recording device by your bed before going to sleep.
- Hold your dream request in mind as you fall asleep.
- Upon awakening, recall all the details of your dream before opening your eyes or even turning over in bed. If you don’t remember a dream, close your eyes and reposition your body exactly as it was just before awakening.
- If you still don’t remember a dream, make one up quickly and spontaneously, immediately upon awakening.
- Record all details of your dream.
Surrender
Most of us are control freaks at heart. It’s no wonder. The reality defined by our physical senses—the world comprised of what we can see and touch—often appears dangerous, made up of random forces beyond our control. It’s easy to feel powerless and vulnerable, and respond by exercising as much control over our surroundings as we can. Much of our work in these lessons involves awakening to the reality that lies beyond the limits of our physical senses, and recognizing the power we have in shaping our experience. This shift in perception allows us to operate at a higher level of empowerment and we become less at the mercy of a seemingly random universe.
Yet, there’s still another step before our power is complete. To the extent that we feel alone in the creative process, we’re still living from limitation. I’ve seen people take on the concept of creating their own reality as a terrible burden, planning, visualizing, and affirming every step of their lives, fearing that if they relax their discipline for a moment they’ll create the “wrong” reality. At some point in the process of accepting how powerful we are, we need to open to a power greater than our own. There’s a paradox here in that one step toward spiritual empowerment is recognizing that we have more control over the seemingly random forces of the universe than we thought and that we truly do create our own reality. Yet, simultaneously, another equally important step requires letting go of control and recognizing our smallness in the face of God.
The resolution of this paradox comes in recognizing that personal control—the power exercised by the personality—isn’t the same as spiritual power. The more we release attachment to our personal will and to specific outcomes, the more we naturally allow our higher power to lead. So, even though we’ve just claimed our greatness through an initiation into spiritual power several weeks ago, it’s equally important to recognize our smallness. Not the powerlessness and separateness so feared and resisted by the ego—more the humble recognition that the conscious personality we most often think of as our “self” is a limited tool and that in order to create something extraordinary, we sometimes need to set it down and give a rest to all the personality’s need to know, need to do, and need to decide.
Even spiritual practices such as creative visualization or affirmations can be used to exercise personal control and fill the void before its time. Such techniques are only useful to the extent that we know what to affirm and visualize. Sometimes the limits of our imagination don’t stretch wide enough to show us the true path of our highest good. If we use these methods to exercise rigid control over our lives, they can backfire. We get what we ask for but we don’t get what we want. There comes a point when we need to trust in the process of life and give undreamed possibilities a chance to grow. In other seasons we’ll visualize, affirm, and manifest our dreams into being, but now isn’t the time to even know for certain what we want.
Questions for Thought
- How are you pushing to know an outcome, or make a decision, or force something into being in a way that isn’t really necessary at this time? See how many things you can think of that you are trying to push ahead that don’t absolutely need to be acted upon or known right now.
- What are you afraid would happen if you just let all these go for now?
Exercise: Surrender
Take a break from all the things you’re pushing to know, to decide, or to make happen that don’t have to be addressed right now, especially those things that feel confusing and aren’t flowing easily. Imagine that pushing ahead right now is like a caterpillar trying to break out of its chrysalis before it’s formed into a butterfly and will only result in birthing something unformed. Imagine that the part of you that’s struggling to make something happen is very small and has to step aside to allow the hand of spirit to work its magic.
As you do this exercise, recognize that surrender is a state of mind, not an action. It’s possible to stop your “doing” without achieving a state of surrender. You also may find that as you achieve a surrendered state, you are naturally led to many actions. What you are releasing here is the “push.”
The Full Void
In Buddhism the void, or emptiness, is seen as the very essence of reality. What’s more, the concepts of emptiness and completeness are very intertwined as one and the same. This concept of a full void is also found in quantum field theory. (For an excellent book on the parallels between Eastern philosophy and quantum physics, see The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra.) Newtonian science defined reality in terms of matter and the empty space around it—both distinct from one another and unchanged by the other. Though quantum science has made this differentiation obsolete, showing the true nature of matter and space to be a unified soup of energy and light, our Western minds still tend to cling to definitions of separateness. Eastern ways of thinking tend to be more accepting of the unknowable and the paradoxical, recognizing that the true nature of reality lies beyond the concepts and definitions of the human mind. Just as the body of a caterpillar literally dissolves in the process of reforming into a butterfly, so too must we allow a process of dissolution, letting go of not just our “doing” but also our “knowing.”
Into the Void
The following meditation is a dip into the fluid, paradoxical soup that is the Void. Do it when you have some uninterrupted, private time. What you bring with you from this meditation may or may not register at a conscious level, but trust that it’s working invisibly to free up areas that have been stuck or frozen, opening you to the yet undreamed possibilities of your future. Review your answers to the “Questions for Thought” before beginning. You might want to have pen and paper close by as this meditation may inspire some automatic writing.
Meditation on the Void
Relax your body and quiet your thoughts with some deep, slow breaths…. Imagine your mind opening in the same way your vision does when you shift your focus from a tiny detail to taking in a whole landscape at once…. Turn your attention inward and let your sense of identification shift from the small self of your personality and body to something greater. Recognize yourself as a wise and timeless spiritual being. Perhaps you have a conception of this and, if so, let it go. Imagine your true Self as being beyond anything you’ve ever envisioned or considered and just relax in the face of the unknowable….
Bring to mind all the things you’re feeling a need to know or push forward. Feel the internal pressure you bring to these areas of your life and be aware of any fear that may be driving it. Also recognize the love and pleasant excitement that may be there as well…. Now step back from it all and imagine that something in this situation is akin to the caterpillar in its chrysalis. Imagine there’s nothing to be done in this moment but relax. Sense the presence of an unseen process in motion, one that’s out of your control and completely unstoppable….
Feel this process at work in every area of your life, out of sight yet palpably present…. The more you feel it, the more you relax, completely safe and at peace in the process of life. Your focus now becomes broad—on everything and on nothing…. There’s a dissolving and melting taking place. It’s not one you can see, define, or completely comprehend but you know it’s in divine order. Parts of you relax that you didn’t even know were tense… you set down burdens you didn’t realize you were carrying… solid forms you’ve been holding in place turn to smoke, releasing you from illusionary obligations… things that were frozen now become fluid…. Everything you thought you knew is now fuzzy… what was sharp has become soft….
The past and the future melt into a continuous Now, and now there is nowhere to be, nothing to do, nothing that’s knowable… so you surrender to the softness around you. Internal pressure gives way to peace…. The boundaries of your “self” soften and blur and there is no inside and outside; no here and there; no object and space, as all “things” blur together into continuity…. In this softening, there is no “you.” There just “is.”
This blending, merging, and flowing into Oneness isn’t frightening or confusing. There is peace… deep peace… and peace gently gives way to something greater… something ecstatic… something that has no words…. Relax into wordlessness, into Oneness, and just be….
When you’re ready to come back, do so gently. Feel the boundaries of your body and personality intact yet open to allow something new. Feel that your mind has been cleared and your body rejuvenated. You now have peace where before there was pressure. Take some deep breaths, stretch, take your time…. Come back to a normal waking state feeling refreshed, alert, and awake.